Pop Culture Happy Hour: Our Great Big Summer Movies Show

This is the time of year when we take a deep breath and a look ahead to the long summer movie season. And this year, as Stephen is quick to point out, things look pretty dire. There's a lot of apocalyptic stuff going on, and zombies, and vampires, and even the Iron Man movie looks dark. (Don't even get us started on the fact that the Star Trek movie is actually subtitled "Into Darkness.")

Everything is up for debate: We think about how to approach Baz Lurhmann's take on The Great Gatsby, particularly in light of his Romeo + Juliet. Glen and I debate whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about bank-robbing magicians, we all ponder why and whether a Lone Ranger movie is necessary, and we do everything we can to avoid talking about Grown Ups 2. Of course, the ones we expect to be most beloved by our listeners are there too, perhaps none more emphatically than Before Midnight and Much Ado About Nothing, the latter of which we skim over a little because we've covered it before in our podcast from the Toronto International Film Festival and I've written about it on the blog.

We spend enough time on movies this week to make a stuffed (even overstuffed) show, so once we're done with that, we move directly on to what's making us happy this week. Stephen is happy about two Iron & Wine songs, including this one and this one. Glen is happy, believe it or not, about this, as well as time he recently spent with some of you and reading this book. Trey is happy about this performance, and this and this and this. I am happy about this (not safe for work!) and by extension this (also not safe for work!), but also this (safe for even your grandma).